"What Money Can't Buy" by Michael Sandel

Michael Sandel is one of Harvard’s most popular professors. His class on Justice is jammed packed with standing room only and now available online.  His talent is focusing on issues that are pertinent and questionable. He raises the complexity of the topics by addressing both the economic and moral implications of the topic.

In “What Money Can’t Buy”, Sandel is essentially addressing the commercialism of virtually anything. His ultimate point is that money’s impact on parts of our lives and society may erode values and morals to our social and personal detriment.

While he is not against marketing and fair trading of property, he is clearly uncomfortable with the downsides of the pervasive use of money’s intrusion to our personal and public lives.

The issues addressed the prevalent spirit that everything has a price. He questions the intrusion of money is simple transactions, like (1) paying someone to stand in line for an event, e.g., seat in the Supreme Court for a special suit, (2) buying tickets at scalper’s (or an agency) prices because money is not an issue due to your wealth, (3) selling blood, (4) pervasive advertisement, e.g., naming rights to athletic fields, buses.

Without coming down hard on the problems of aggressive marketing, he raises the downside effects of the phenomena. He recognizes that cohesive nature of our society is jeopardized when the influence of money separates the rich from everyone else in virtually everything. Without referencing the noteworthy 1%, he points out that these people essentially are divorced from the rest of society and, as a result, society is less a whole. The willingness of people in financial straights to sell the rights to commercialize their property by having the house become plastered with an advertisement may represent good marketing, but what does it do to a community? You can think back on Lady Bird’s work to beautify our highways that have now become a series of electronic ads.

In short, he raises the issue that some things that are precious to human beings and society are threatened when they become commodified as subjects of trade. He raises the issue that our values can be degraded when subjected to aggressive marketing and trade. He recognizes the dilemmas that individuals and civic institutions, e.g., cities and towns, are stressed with the need for additional revenue, but solving them by giving naming rights to public institutions, e.g., schools, is corrosive of values deemed important.

From my perspective, I admit to having noticed his invasion of commercialism with some uneasiness, but it never became crystallized as Sandel depicts the problem. He does not lay out a plan of action as much a cry to think about what is happening and question the possible losses to our personal lives and social fabric.